[Grassroots-l] Health Jam 2008

[Samuel Klein]

There's no contradiction between activities that are fun, or with complex
ideas behind them, and those that teach the most basic health and survival
skills to children.

There are three health-related games being proposed and worked on at the
moment that are good examples; all of which could use further specific
input.  Food Force is closest to having something playable... pehaps Muriel
and Deepank can say a bit more about its recent status.

http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Water_Wonders
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Malnutrition
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Food_Force

SJ

On Tue, Apr 29, 2008 at 1:03 PM, Bryan Berry <bryan.berry at gmail.com> wrote:

> > From: "Ixo X oxI" <ixo at myna.ws>
> > Subject: [Grassroots-l] Health Jam 2008 (article and pictures)
> > To: "OLPC Grassroots" <grassroots at lists.laptop.org>
> > Message-ID:
> >       <52bb973e0804281232s5ab06460t598406b19b1e72d8 at mail.gmail.com>
> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
> >
> > For those people interested in some pictures and write-up from the
> Health
> > Jam 2008 (Seattle, WA)
> >    ( http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Health_Jam )
> >
> >
> http://thedaily.washington.edu/2008/4/23/nonprofit-group-visits-campus-hopes-give-one-lapto/
> >
> >
> > And for a more detailed picture.
> >   http://thedaily.washington.edu/photo/2008/04/23/3101/
> >
> > Bonus for IRC and wiki people, can you guess which one is Seth
> > (isforinsects) and Iain (iXo).
> >
> > :)
> > -iXo
>
> Guys, sounds like an interesting event. I am wary that OLPC Health is
> focusing on complex systems when most of the kids (and adults) in
> deployments really need basic health information. They don't need a
> healthcare administration system like WorldVistA or MUMPS running on the
> XO, at least not in the short term.
>
> Kids need basic information about health and interactive learning
> activities those help them really understand those ideas.
>
> My experience working w/ university students is that they tend to start
> projects that are fun for research but not related to practical
> outcomes. For example, I meet many university kids that want to work on
> new physics engines or porting their favorite linux app to Sugar, but
> very few that want to work on Sugar's performance. They need to be
> guided to the problems that need the most attention.
>
> If OLPC Health's goal is to do new cool things w/ the XO that are
> somehow related to health, the current approach is fine. But if you guys
> want to create something that is really relevant to kids at deployments,
> I recommend focusing on the basic stuff.
>
> This reminds me of an earlier discussion about porting Matlab to the XO.
> Most Nepali kids who could use Matlab today or w/in a few months already
> own computers and go to private schools. The kids that OLPC is trying to
> reach need the basics of mathematics first. They need better activities
> to teach division, multiplication, algebra, etc.
>
> That's my two cents.
>
> I was really hope OLPC Health can make some progress towards
> activity(ies) that would teach kids about the causes of disease,
> sanitary habits, basic first aid, etc. That is what we could really use
> at our pilot schools in Nepal. I imagine the same is true for India,
> Peru, Mexico, etc.
>
> Bryan
> OLE Nepal
> Kathmandu
>
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